----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Smith
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Bulk Wine Shipments

Not to be a wiener, but if they could ship wine (ostensibly without
contamination), why couldn't they have shipped grape juice?

Kurt,

As any home brewer/vintner knows, a high degree of cleanliness prior to
fermentaition is an absolute requirement. The grape juice has sugars that
are fermentable and any contamination by wild yeast will result in
fermentation, off flavors and less sugar for the wine yeast to ferment.
Thus the car would need to be nearly sterile for the transport of grape
juice destined for wine and no stray yeast could be allowed to enter
during transfer or transport (difficult to accomplish). Wine OTOH, has a
high enough alcohol content that the yeast that fermented it have
committed a very pleasent sort of suicide. Stray wild yeast are unlikely
to find any fermentable sugars, or to survive in the alcohol. Cleanliness
is still very important, but not nearly so much as with the unfermented
grape juice.

BTW, grape juice NOT destined for fermentation would have addatives in it
to prevent fermentation so that strict sanitization would not be needed to
transport it.

Bruce - breathing a sigh of relief since my Apricot Mead has fermented out
with no sign of contamination!

Bruce Smith
Auburn, AL